Arctic variability, inter action and feedbacks

Arctic: variability, interactions and feedback

The Arctic has been a new field of work for the CNRS since 2010. The manifestation of climate warming is particularly severe and spectacular: reduced ground snow cover time and ice volume in Greenland, retreat of the permafrost and rapid reduction of the southern ice floes with its virtually total seasonal disappearance in perspective on a horizon of a few decades, with all that this means in terms of feedback effects on the climate system, and also for its impacts on human activities in the Arctic Ocean and its periphery (traditional lifestyles, maritime traffic, oil and mining exploration, fishing, etc.). Effects on the environment are also being felt. Beyond the cryosphere, major environmental disturbances in all compartments of the climate system have clearly shown up in the last few decades, with a visible or expected impact on marine and continental ecosystems, biodiversity, the greenhouse gas cycle and all the continental, atmospheric and oceanic physico-chemical equilibria.

Scientific activities around these issues for the Arctic region have been developed over the last few years in the OMP and its academic and non-academic partner laboratories. Several national and international projects have already led to the development of databases, products, methodology, models and skills which are the driving force at the Toulouse centre for setting up new projects. This AST will promote this Toulouse expertise and the multidisciplinary approach that is necessary to improve our understanding of the Arctic terrestrial ecosystem and to tackle the question of adaptation to climate changes. The transverse research area is motivated by the need to create a synergy on this issue which has strongly international socio-economic implications.

Involved in this AST are some twenty researchers from all the laboratories of the OMP, the CNRM-GAME, MERCATOR and the CLS. It is supported by the resources of existing projects and its purpose is to coordinate collegial actions to respond to future calls for tender from the French Arctic work field and the Horizon 2020 programme.

The two main objectives of the Arctic AST are:

- create a network of researchers from different scientific fields to facilitate data acquisition, the use of tools, the exchange of ideas and the setting up of emerging projects.

- give visibility to work carried out by the OMP researchers and partner Toulouse laboratories with the eventual aim of becoming a competitive centre on the Arctic on a national and international level.

Three themes are especially tackled in this AST:

• The melting of the permafrost: interactions between hydrology, vegetation and biogeochemical cycles. This AST project will address: (1) the characterisation of mechanisms for the formation of flows of water in permafrost regions; (2) an understanding of the representativeness of systems targeted in our studies (the problem of change of scale and extrapolation to regional scale); (3) assessment of the consequences of the melting of the permafrost on the supply of water and mineral and organic matter in the Arctic ocean; (4) an understanding of the mechanisms of vertical and lateral exchanges in greenhouse gases in the hydro-ecosystems of permafrost regions.

• "Man-Environment interactions in the Arctic Regions" (InHERA): this project corresponds to the InHERA project, validated and financed under the AAP "Transversality" of the Toulouse Idex. Its aim is to mobilise a wide range of approaches on the Toulouse site (environmental science, biological and health science, economic and social science) around issues of impacts on environmental changes on societies and health in the Arctic regions and the adaptation of societies. This will involve round table discussions, workshops, etc. to prepare structured and credible multidisciplinary responses to future calls for projects, especially under H2020;

• The retreat of the Arctic ice floes, its effects and interactions. This project is aimed at: (1) improving estimates of the thickness and volume of ice in the Arctic ocean by satellite measurements to provide data for forecasting models; (2) studying the dynamics of the ice in coastal and estuary regions, taking into account processes specific to these regions; (3) improving our knowledge on remote atmospheric connections between medium and high latitudes and documenting them on seasonal and climatic scales, and in terms of their relation to the regional climate.

The MAFSO campaign (Mission Archéologique Française en Sibérie Oreintale) took place in Central Yakutia during August 2016. It was one of the richest in the past decade in the three topics covered by this mission: the world of the dead and funeral practices, the reconstitution of the living world and finally the evolution and the settlement. The 2016 issue was initiated: (i) by a series of scientific data resulting from archaeological, historical and genetic synthesis, now subject, which have altered our vision of the Yakut of the approach; (Ii) the production of a documentary movie for the general public as the last dated from 2007 and the issue had evolved beyond the scope of remote and spectacular tombs (subject of the 2007 film); (Iii) the drastic reduction of our credit that forced us to move to areas difficult to access and therefore require the use of adapted vehicles: boats and air travel within Yakutia.

In August 2016 joint French-Russian field trip has been effectuated in the Central Yakutia (fig.1). The field trip was funded by UPS IDEX Transversalité "InHERA" project. The main goal of the expedition was to collect the ground truth data, which are vital for generation of high-resolution maps of biophysical parameters from satellite measurements.

Figure 1. Measurement of vegetation and soil parameters in the larix forest and in the alas.

The Central Yakutia is considered to be among the regions that are the most vulnerable to the climate warming. The warm permafrost (with the temperature near 0°C) with high content of ground ice cores is widely developed on the Lena River terraces (fig.2a). As the ground ice melts, it leads to soil subsidence and formation of thermokarst lakes (fig.2b).

With time, meadow vegetation develops around the lakes, forming the unique ecological complexes, called "Alas" by the Yakutian people. In the severe climatic and environmental conditions of Siberia, the settlements appeared mostly along the rivers. In the Central Yakutia, thank to alasses the people can live also on intefluvial areas. Alas lakes provide people with water and meadows allow to develop the settled life-style based on horse and cattle breeding. The modern climate change affects the water regime of lakes and productivity of the meadows. Together with the colleagues from the Institute for Biological Problems of Cryolithozone (IBPC) in Yakutsk, we study the alas ecosystems in the climate and social context.

Thanks to results of the joint LEGOS-IBPC 2016 trip, the maps of alas lakes and meadow ecosystems are already produced and now available for analysis (fig.3).

Figure 3. Map of alas lakes (blue) and meadows (green) around a settlement (red circle) in the Central Yakutia.

The mysterious origin of the Iakoute horse finally elucidated

The horses of the Iakoutes, a north-east Siberian horse breeding people, have been an enigma for scientists up to now. The origin of this extremely robust breed, able to survive in temperatures around -70°C, had not yet been able to be determined. Thanks to work published recently in the journal PNAS by an international team

Submission of CHARCOT and HYPER-ARC projects to the 2015 call by the National Arctic project

We wish good luck to the projects CHARCOT "Climate change in the Eastern Arctic and adaptive dynamics of Siberian communities" and HYPER-ARC "Impact of climate change upon Arctic hydrological systems associated to permafrost thawing (Siberia and Spitsbergen)" submitted last 31 March in response to the 2015 call by the National Arctic project. The Toulouse forces who are committed are the LEGOS, the CNRM-GAME, AMIS and the CPTP (for CHARCOT) and the GET, the LEGOS, ECOLAB, the LA and the CNRM-GAME for HYPER-ARC

- May 2016 Workhop InHERA

The 2nd International Workshop on Man- Environment Interaction in the Arctic Regions held in Toulouse, France, 17-18 May 2016. The workshop was a part of the two-years collaborative project funded by Transdisciplinary IDEX program InHERA of the Toulouse University. The project gathers together 8 laboratories working in the field of natural and human sciences.

The purpose of the workshop was to bring together scientists working in environmental, anthropological and social domains. The 20 workshop participants from France, Russia and Germany represented over 11 laboratories, institutions and universities.

The workshop lasted 2 days. During the first day participants presented their current research activities in the Siberian Arctic and Yakutia (Sakha). The second day was devoted to animated interactive discussion on synergy of our expertise for joint studies, funding opportunities and sources, and future short- and long-term actions.

- Febuary 2016

What are the health risks for people dwelling, sporting, or working in the Arctic area of the Sakha Republic ?

New results from recently published research.

In 2012, a seroprevalence survey concerning 10 zoonoses, which were bacterial (Lyme borreliosis and Q fever), parasitic (alveolar echinococcosis [AE] and cystic echinococcosis [CE], cysticercosis, toxoplasmosis, toxocariasis, and trichinellosis), or arboviral (tick-borne encephalitis and West Nile virus infection), was conducted among 77 adult volunteers inhabiting Suordakh and Tomtor Arctic villages in the Verkhoyansk area (Yakutia). Following serological testing by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and/or western blot, no positive result was found for cysticercosis, CE, toxocariasis, trichinellosis, and both arboviral zoonoses. Four subjects (5.2%) had anti-Toxoplasma IgG, without the presence of specific IgM. More importantly, eight subjects (10.4%) tested positive for Lyme borreliosis, two (2.6%) for recently acquired Q fever, and one (1.3%) for AE.

Bibliographic reference

Lyme infection and Q fever, whose presence had not been reported so far in Arctic Yakutia, appeared therefore to be a major health threat for people dwelling, sporting, or working in the Arctic area of the Sakha Republic.